


Card Shark

by imbadatlove



Category: Left 4 Dead 2
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-18 06:12:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9371750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imbadatlove/pseuds/imbadatlove
Summary: The gambler’s not the only one with a few tricks up his sleeve.





	

"Nick, will ya stop runnin' off for once?" Coach groaned as he watched Nick sprint into another one of the casinos they had currently passed. He felt Rochelle place a hand on his shoulder reassuringly.

"Hey, at least he isn't having a go at us, right? I'd rather deal with an annoying Nick rather than a pissy Nick. Wouldn't you?" Okay, fair point. Coach sighed and nodded before the other survivors trotted along following Nick into the casino. When they went inside they noticed straight away Nick rummaging through the cash registers before sliding over to a poker table and searching it.

"Nick wha' are yew even lookin' fer?" Ellis questioned, slinging his hunting rifle over his shoulder as Nick swept past him to continue his search. The only answer he got was an annoyed grunt before Nick returned from his search to the group.

"Tits." He cursed before he walked out the casino and back to the streets the team were currently searching. His teammates glanced a look to one another before they reluctantly followed the gambler down the street where he was already picking off a few stray infected in their path. The other three stayed a bit behind Nick; a bit fazed by his strange behaviour.

"That was the fourth casino we passed today...Why does he keep scavenging each one?" Rochelle questioned as she steadied her M16 in her arms. Coach sighed.

"I ain't sure, baby girl. But whatever it is, let's hope he stops doin' it soon. He's gonna get 'imself killed if he keeps runnin' off like that."

"Maybe he's lookin' fer somethin'? We all know that mister gamblin' man was a gambler after all, righ'? So...Wha' do gamblers use?" The youngest teammate questioned.

"Maybe, but I don't know much about gambling, so I have no clue what he could be looking for. Unless it's—" She was cut off by a shrill cry coming from ahead of them. They whipped their heads around to see Nick entangled in a pink, saliva-dripping tongue and dangling about two metres above the ground, his back slammed against a brick wall.

"Smokers' got me!" He choked out before the tongue wrapped around his neck even tighter, silencing any calls of help.

"Hold on, we're comin'!" Coach shouted but Ellis reacted quickly; he pulled his hunting rifle off his shoulder and quickly looked through his scope. He rapidly pulled the trigger and the Smoker exploded into a musky, thick, green cloud of fog. It dropped Nick to the floor and he crouched, trying to regain his breath.

"Nice shot, sweetie!" Rochelle clapped him on the back and he smiled back before they both joined Coach by Nicks' side. They yanked the tongue off the suited man before helping him up, finding that he couldn't stand right.

"Anything hurt?" Rochelle asked as she looked at Nick, slightly guilty that she and the others had fallen behind.

"My legs' fucked up. No, Rochelle nothing hurts." He spat sarcastically and Rochelle rolled his eyes, scowling but traced her fingers down Nicks' leg, stopping when she heard a noise emit from the gamblers' throat. She looked at where her fingers were and spotted the swelling and purple surrounding the bone.

"You've sprained your ankle, possibly." She confirmed before pulling out some bandages and wrapping them tightly around his ankle to add extra support to the injury.

"You think you'll be alrigh' to walk?" Coach questioned and Nick begrudgingly picked his Ak-47 off of the floor and rolled his eyes.

"I'm not a kid, Coach. We leave this job to Overalls right here." He gestured his thumb to the mechanic who was currently staring at the distance, obliviously daydreaming. Nick snapped his fingers in front of Ellis' face and he came crashing back into reality. His baby blues focused on Nicks' hardened green before he quirked a brow at him.

"We're moving now Overalls. You can daydream about your boyfriend Keith later." He smirked at the kids' dumbfounded face before they all started walking again. Well, limping in the conmans' case. He tried to keep up the best he could but as they turned to cross a corner, his stepping faltered and he fell to the ground, swearing. His knees hit the concrete pavement with a sickening crunch and he grimaced as he tried to sit up. Considering the mechanic was behind him, he was at Nicks' side in an instant.

"Shit Nick, yew okay?" He asked and held his hand out to the gambler who took it gratefully.

"Mother fucking apocalypse can kiss my ass." He grunted before he tried to put weight onto his ankle but he faltered again and nearly fell. He felt a strong arm lock around his waist, catching him before he could crash down again. As much as he disliked the kid, (well, that's what he told himself how he felt for the kid) he couldn't argue that he was loyal to him and the team every single time, he never let him down mostly; no matter how naïve he was.

They limped another couple of streets until something caught the card sharks' eye, another casino. With the amount of casinos he'd seen, he wouldn't mind living in a hick city if he could make a couple grand a day; man, that would be the life right there. But of course, Nick wasn't going to dwell in the past; the zombie apocalypse had pretty much fucked everything up anyway. He stopped walking for a moment, making Ellis stop as well.

"Wha's wrong?" Ellis questioned and he looked at the gambler from the corner of his eye. Nick just pointed at the casino and began making his way towards it, practically forcing Ellis by dragging him too.

"Uh, hey Ro, Coach! Me an' Nick are jus' gonna search this 'ere casino..." He yelled as he was being dragged, unsure of whether his other teammates heard him or not. But whatever, maybe he could find out why Nick was so addicted to these buildings.

Once they were inside, Nick slipped from Ellis' grasp and began limping around himself. He repeated the same process as he had before in the other casinos. He checked the cartages of the slot machines; the draws of the spinners, the cash register...

The gambler dipped his fingers into the slots of one of the machines and twisted his fingers around a little; obviously performing some sort of wicked trick that he had learn from his gambling past years ago, before pulling his hand out in a clenched fist, hiding something in his palm. He shoved his hand in his pocket, emptying the things he'd found into the fabric. He smirked at Ellis who was currently sitting on a poker table, watching him intensely. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Look, I'll explain later. But get your ass up and let's move before Ro comes nagging us to 'get a move on'." He made air quotes and a impersonation of Rochelles' sassy voice. Ellis snorted at the voice before hopping off of the table and helping the gambler walk again.

Once they were outside, Rochelle waltzed over to the pair, hands on her hips and stood in front of them.

"Where were you? We need to get a move on." Ellis burst out laughing and Nick smirked at the smaller one of the two men.

"See? Told you." He let out a soft chuckle of his own, his stomach feeling like butterflies were fluttering around when he noticed he'd made the kid laugh.

"You know what? I don't even wanna know. Come on, there's a safe house up ahead." The three then started walking towards the safe house where Coach was inside scurrying around. They all wondered what the hell the big man was doing, and when they neared the safe house, they realised why.

The safe house was a small market food shop. It had bedrooms above the shop itself and it was destroyed in a few places but looked stable enough for the night. Inside the shop, there were a few packets of food and some spare water bottles. They spotted Coach grabbing a chocolate bar and sinking his teeth into the delicacy, that was probably out of date. But nothing gets in the way of Coach and his chocolate. The sky started to quickly darken and they quickened their pace. As they watched Coach more, Nick spoke up.

"If the zombies don't kill Coach, diabetes sure will." He smirked, earning a firm slap on the shoulder by Rochelle as they all gathered in the shop and barricaded the door. Another lucky day, not many injuries and just in time for nightfall, looks like things were looking up for them. Rochelle slumped against Coach who was currently leaning against the wall munching his chocolate.

"I'm exhausted...Boys, who's gonna take first watch? I can hardly stand." She groaned and Coach patted her on the shoulder.

"Nick and the lad can take first watch, me an' you can sleep." He explained before they both dragged their feet upstairs, leaving no room for protests or arguments from the other two.

"Thanks for considering our opinions too." Nick rolled his eyes, not caring if the others heard him or not. He sat down against the wall and sighed. He flicked his gaze to the boys', who was staring him down.

"What?"

"We should prolly bandage up tha' ankle of yers." He opened up his medkit and pulled out a roll of gauze before lifting up the mans' suit trouser leg slightly and beginning to wrap the bandage around carefully. It was a bit difficult as Nicks' ankle had already swelled and was a purplish, pink colour but he managed to do it as gently as possible. After that, they both sat facing the wall in silence, listening for any zombies. Suddenly, something popped into the mechanics' head.

"Yew said yew were gonna show me wha' yew were lookin' fer." Ellis moved to sit down in front of Nick, waiting for whatever surprise the conman had tucked up his sleeve. Nick smirked and pulled a packet of cards from his pocket.

"Huh? Why'dja need these fer?" The mechanic questioned, but was interested nonetheless. Nick didn't tell them much about his past and Ellis looked up to the man, anything to learn about him was good in his books.

"It just relieves stress sometimes." He simply stated before opening the pack and spreading them out on the floor and sorting them. He looked back up at Ellis again.

"Wanna play a round? If you hicks even know how to play poker." He muttered. Ellis nodded quickly, grinning and watching the gambler deal them a hand of cards each. The gambler gathered up his cards in his hand and looked over them before smirking. He switched his expression to his classic poker face. He picked up a card and looked at it. Ellis did the same.

"Four of a kind," Nick smirked, thinking he'd won. Ellis laid out his cards to reveal—

—a royal flush.

Nicks' eyes bulged out of his skull.

"What the fuck?!" Ellis laughed so hard he rolled over on to his side, howling with laughter as Nick tried to piece together how he'd lost. He'd specifically shuffled the deck so he'd get the best cards and the hillbilly would get the bad ones so he could whoop his ass. How on Earth?

After Ellis finally stopped laughing, he sat up with the most devious smirk on his face that Nick had ever seen. It seemed impossible for the smiling mechanic to look so deceptive.

"Don' judge a book by its' cover, Nick." He gave him a sly wink before manoeuvring on to his knees and lifting his feet to get up but Nick tugged him forward forcefully by his shirt, crashing his thin lips against Ellis' thicker ones. The mechanic flushed bright red but didn't pull away either, in fact he slowly kissed Nick back.

"Damn, wouldn'a picked yew to do this type of thing, Nick." Ellis grinned cockily.

"Don't judge a book by its' cover, Overalls." Nick laughed at the look on the kids' face.

"Touché."

**Author's Note:**

> This story was also posted on my deviantart which you can find here: www.cuddlyjess.deviantart.com (edit: i deleted my account as all my Nellis stories were really shit lol. But I regret not saving them so i could improve them :()
> 
> I have a lot of Nellis stories there as well which you can read if you want, but most of them are one shots. I created an AO3 account to post my multi chapter stories/longer one shots as my Deviantart is just fluffy stories. 
> 
> Thanks for reading and feedback is greatly appreciated! ;A;


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